Young Christiaan received the finest education possible and was exposed to Europe's intellectual elite.  Classically educated by his father, Christiaan's intellectual contacts included none other than the Father of Modern Philosophy, René Descartes, and from an early age young Christiaan corresponded with Mersenne.  In May 1645, at age sixteen, Huygens entered Leiden University where he studied mathematics and law.  It was here he came under the influence of a brilliant teacher, Frans van Schooten, who would guide his early work in mathematics.  Two years later, in March 1647, Huygens studied law at the University of Breda before finally returning to The Hague.  At this point young Huygens no doubt began to feel pressure to make a career decision.  By now it was clear that he did not wish to follow his father into diplomatic life.  Christiaan was highly gifted and highly privileged.  This made it no easier to be the son of Constantijn Huygens.  Young Huygens, however, soon began to demonstrate his prodigious talent.  His first published work, Theoremata de quadratura hyperboles, ellypsis et circuli (1651) displayed his geometrical skills. 

But a turning point in Huygen's young career came with his visit to Paris in 1655.  Although he stayed on five months, Huygens came into contact with the sort of intellectual life he had sought.  Here, in the polite parlors of Paris, arguably the intellectual center of Europe, Christiaan met most of the notable scientists of the day, among them Gassendi, Auzout, Boulliau, Roberval, Mylon, and Sorbière.  He was also privy to learned discussions and recent gossip about the ongoing work of Descartes, Desargues, Fermat, and Pascal.

Throughout the middle decades of the 1650s Huygens had been developing several projects simultaneously.  The common thread was astronomy.  While in Paris he made contacts with various lens makers in hopes of improving designs and techniques for his own longview lenses.  Latter, back in The Hague, he made several observational discoveries that would make him famous, not least, Saturn's major satellite Titan.  If that were not enough, Huygen's success in improving lenses led him to focus on the rings of Saturn, the results of which he published in 1659 as the Systema Saturnium. The third and perhaps most abiding project dealt with designing pendulum clocks. 

After some four years in Holland Huygens returned to Paris in October 1660.  Throughout this period Huygens had been drawn into a number of controversies.  He emerged not only victorious but celebrated.  His great success was due to remarkable talent, scrupulous attention to detail, and shrewd social connections.  Paris was his. 

In Spring Huygens returned to The Hague and between May 1662 and April of the next year he worked tirelessly on his various concurrent projects, on lenses, clocks, mathematics, and on vacuum air pumps.  In Spring 1663 he returned to Paris where he remained about one year, enjoying a summer trip to London in 1663.  It was during this visit that Huygens was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the first of many such honors.  Indeed, when he returned to Paris later that year he was offered a substantial pension by Louis XIV, who had visions of what would eventually become the Académie royale des sciences.  As Boulliau indicated, of all of those who would finally be selected, Huygens was 'first among them.'  Huygens eventually returned to Paris in May 1666.  Here he was given a prestigious apartment in rooms below the Bibliothèque royale, the new home of the nascent Académie.  Huygens occupied these rooms until 1681.  During the next fifteen years he returned to The Hague on only two occasions, reportedly for reasons of health. 

During his years in Paris Huygens was a mainstay of the Académie.  Arguably his principle work during this period (it was almost an obsession) focused on pendulum clocks, the fruit of which appeared in 1673 (Paris).  Huygens was also deeply interested in developing a theory of light, which he completed during his Paris years (1678).  Finally, in 1681 he returned to Holland for reasons of health.  He never returned.  France was no longer a favorable place for Protestants. 

Toward the end of his life Huygens made a final visit to England, and in 1689 he met with the recent author of the Principia, Isaac Newton.  Little is known of the encounter, though there is substantial extant correspondence from this period between Huygens and Leibnitz.  Huygens died in 1695.  Although he left a number of works unpublished, most have subsequently appeared in print.  One of his last gestures (typically simple, shrewd, and elegant) Huygens insisted that his unpublished manuscripts and correspondence be deposited with an institution.